New Russian aircraft for 1937

First, a front-line fighter from Polikarpov. Though similar in size to the I-34, it is substantially redesigned, using an inline engine. Due to its mission, it is designed to operate from austere bases.

Imagine an I-16 with an inline engine

That should give an idea.

It's light, so producing large numbers of 'em won't use up too much aluminum.
(I figure the RF produces around 40,000 tons/year, growing to ~55,000 tons/yr by 1939. Soviet production in 1939 was 60,000 tons)

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "AdmKuznetsov" (Aug 17th 2008, 7:24am)

RE: Imagine an I-16 with an inline engine

Quoted

Originally posted by AdmKuznetsov
That should give an idea.

It's light, so producing large numbers of 'em won't use up too much aluminum.
(I figure the RF produces around 40,000 tons/year, growing to ~55,000 tons/yr by 1939. Soviet production in 1939 was 60,000 tons)

It's EXTREMELY light, given that 1100 hp inlines weighed (generally) around 500-600 kg dry. The historical I-17's were in the same weight range, but had a good deal less range using a less powerful engine.

I looked at the speed.

Compared to the CR.36 which is very marginal for weight with a lot shaved off, the I-37 is larger and draggier but somehow weighs considerably less and has considerably greater performance. Planebuilder can give some strange results.

With regards to construction - Russia has lots and lots of wood that is cheap and equally good as aluminium for most things.

The Il-2 is like the historical Il-2 but a bit smaller for some reason. 12mm armour around the entire cockpit instead of just the pilot (and it wasn't that thick on the Il-2) would put the weight up considerably.

I'm having a hard time getting the I-17s weight down that low, using the historical Klimov M-105 engine weight of 620 kg, without doing things like not having any weapons, and lowering the "do-not-exceed" speed to 400 kts. If you do that, yes, the weight in Planebuilder looks like what's quoted, but..... there's no armament and you can't dive.

1 - the prop diameter is insane: you've got a propeller that's bigger than a Thunderbolt's on this thing. For a engine in the 1100 hp range, you should be looking at a 8-10 foot prop.

2 - the fuselage diameter's too small. The Klimov itself is bigger than 2.5 feet across, as is the pilot. Most V-12s of this period and size are AT LEAST 3 feet across, and the pilot needs at least that much if not more like 3.5'. Kaiser Kirk was working me over on this front back a bit.

Something else that you can clean up: if it's a monoplane, you don't need the "monoplane with struts" it's showing now. That can be fixed by setting it to have 1 wing, not 1.01.

The armament weight looks a touch low as well (though it might be OK, haven't got Planebuilder on this Linux machine since it doesn't work with OpenOffice), and there's only barely enough payload to carry ammunition for the guns.

This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "Hrolf Hakonson" (Aug 18th 2008, 2:47am)